june 8, the smiley barista remembers my name

Beauty on earth so blue, even the cheese flowers

a culture with no democracy...    Yesterday (for example),

I ate the same sandwich I eat every week: eggplant

roasted in red pepper aioli, a focaccia jammed full

by arugula, capers sweaty in browned butter. How

have I come to love routine? I’m thirsty and abashed.

The fabric of my childhood underwear triple axels in the wind—wow.

The whole neighborhood watches me do emails, go to therapy: she shed

revenge for forgiveness. I said it, “i forgive you” slipping

like a key beneath a door, where never was a house attached.

Is it beauty on earth, so blue? Each side stalled, you are touched,

forstanding the sun. Its fat macula borne down grips

(i wish! i saw! i fear! i heard! i dream) like an emotion.

This is not a feeling. This can be, I think, a conversation.